In today’s post, the serial comma—also known as the Oxford comma. For those of us who may become rather focused on such things, the debate about “serial comma, yes or no?” can be serious business. Commas are wonderful tools. They convey changes of direction, clarify sentences, indicate pauses, and flag upcoming dialogue. In marketing communications, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘marcomm’
Check Your Jargon—Please.
Your Highness: I’m clued in enough to laugh at those parodies of over-the-top business jargon that periodically make the rounds… but I’m also quite aware of the need to keep my job fit in by embracing the specialized language of my professional peers. What’s an English major turned midlevel marketing manager to do? My dear [...]
Case Study Approvals—Without the Hassle
You’ve started a customer reference program, and found the perfect customer to feature. The draft has been through all your organization’s approval layers. After the customer approves the draft, it’s ready for publication. Approval should be a breeze. A day or two seems reasonable, doesn’t it? After all, the customer did agree to participate. Actually, [...]
Brand Authenticity in the Digital Age
Every brand makes a promise to customers. For Apple, the promise is elegantly designed, easy-to-use products. For Starbucks, it’s that customers will receive the same high-quality products and service every time they interact with the brand, around the world. For FedEx, it’s that packages will reach their destination absolutely, positively overnight. Authentic brands are those [...]
Content Bureau Credits: to Share, or Not to Share?
Surprise! You’ve just received an email saying that you have a credit with the Content Bureau. It’s a nice problem to have, n’est-ce pas? Except that you are now wracked by guilt. When you opened the PO for that project that went under budget, and for which you now have a credit, you were in [...]
Pictures Worth More Than a Thousand Words: Using Animated Video in Online Marketing Campaigns
Today’s online marketing campaigns are often forced into the small smartphone viewing area, where everything that can be “above the fold” must be “above the fold.” The name of the game is still the same, however: Getting consumers’ attention and holding it long enough to create an impression that leads to action. Animated videos can [...]
The Creative Brief: Step #1 in Great Marketing Campaigns
Work in marketing long enough and you’ll feel it: the pit in your stomach when you and your creative team start talking past each other. “The creative team isn’t giving us what we want,” you assert. “Marketing doesn’t know what it wants,” the creative team counters. There’s an easy way to avoid this too-common marketing [...]
The Art of Blurbing
They’re everywhere. Book jackets, of course, and ads for movies—but also, unlikely places, such as cereal boxes and sides of buses. Twitter is essentially built on them. Yes, we are surrounded by blurbs—short (usually), glowing reviews or micro-stories lauding this, that, or the other. When flooded with this many “inputs,” as a tech-y friend of [...]
Managing a Massive, Multi-Asset Marcom Project? Be a Partner to Your Copywriting Agency for the Best Results
When clients hire the Content Bureau to manage their massive, multi-asset marcom projects, it’s their ongoing engagement that plays a key role in the project’s success. In this post, one of the Content Bureau’s beloved clients, Kerry Anne Rothe, Senior Manager of Communications at PayPal, shares tips for how clients should partner with their copywriting [...]
If We’re Really Grown-Ups, Then Why Do We Start Working Harder in September?
I just received an unintentionally hilarious piece of mail. It’s a letter from one of my many credit card providers, telling me I’m “approved” for a free 2013 appointment book and pocket organizer set. I am to pay just $4.95 for shipping and handling. It was a nice gesture, and I should probably reciprocate by [...]
